


Cuddling with the Enemy

by WriteNotFight



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Fluff, Jamilton - Freeform, M/M, Modern AU, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7174835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteNotFight/pseuds/WriteNotFight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Political rivals Hamilton and Jefferson take a one night break from arguing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Backtrack. Zoom out. Zoom in.

No matter what Thomas does, he can't even begin to comprehend how he got here, on this bed, with this usually wired, high-strung man now half-asleep against his chest, sedated by the warmth of the room and the lull of the rain. Cuddling with his enemy… God, what a career-destroyer this is going to be. Because Thomas will never be able to look at Alex’s eyes the same way after tonight. The desperate determination he used to scoff at, he’ll now respect and even envy. And Alexander’s body… Well. Basically, Thomas is never going to draft a piece of legislation or make a coherent argument in a cabinet meeting ever again as long as Alex is there. Standing and sitting and walking, pulling his hair back into a sloppy ponytail and never fixing it when bits fall out, sticking his tongue out a little when he’s consumed in his writing… 

 

Backtrack. It started, as nearly all life-ruining decisions do, in President George Washington’s office. It was the first excruciating cabinet meeting of what would surely be many. Washington calls everyone “son”, but there is no mistaking who his favorite little boy is: the president probably has to pour his entire mental and physical capacity into not giving a one-man standing ovation every time Alexander Hamilton finishes speaking. The argument of the day was whether to help or completely blow off the French as they followed the United States on a path to revolution. Hamilton was for blowing off the French, because he was a greedy, selfish bastard who didn't care that Lafayette was the only reason America got its independence in the first place. Washington agreed with Hamilton probably before Hamilton even started making his case, and Jefferson barely got a word in before Washington started to accuse him of letting his “ideals blind him to reality”, whatever that abstract bullshit was supposed to mean. Thomas was so pissed, in fact, that he pulled Alexander aside for a little chat after the rest of the cabinet was gone.

“Did you forget Lafayette?” was Jefferson’s opening line. At this point he had neither time nor energy for pleasantries. “Do you even regret anything? You accumulate debt, you accumulate power, yet the second someone who helped you wants something in return, you back down.”

“Lafayette's a smart man,” Alexander said. “He’ll be fine. Anyway, I was friends with him before you --”

“This isn't about who was friends with him first! This is about keeping a promise to the man we owe our country to.” 

“Sure, that's what it’s about now. But later it will be another country wanting our help, and another, and they’ll all be great revolutions but they don’t need us. If we try to fight in every one, when do we stop? When our funds are completely exhausted? When all our men are dead?” 

The man had a point. But Jefferson wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “We’re not talking about later. We’re talking about one war, one noble cause, one promise that you made.” 

“We’re in enough debt already, it would cost too much!” Alexander was raking his fingers through his hair now. The rest of the cabinet had gone home, and it was only the Secretaries of State and Treasury, alone together, engaging in a screaming match about an issue that had already been decided.

“I think we can handle it,” Jefferson said coolly.

“Gah! Of course we can! That isn't the question, Jefferson, it's like…” Suddenly Hamilton was staring out the window behind Jefferson, blank-faced.

“You okay?” Jefferson asked.

“Shut up, I'm thinking of an analogy.”

Jefferson crossed his arms across his chest and waited. 

“Okay, got one! It’s like if some guy, say a relatively poor guy but not broke, just some kid getting his start in life, with a decent job but no money to spare…” Hamilton launched into one hell of a story, about a young man who keeps getting solicited by desperate impoverished women to take and care for their babies, and in a week he becomes a single guy with twelve tiny children to take care of, and he files for bankruptcy and tries to get other people to take the babies but no one will, so his life is ruined.

Jefferson pointed out, that story didn't make much sense. Because helping a country fight a war was more like volunteering for a few hours a day at a local daycare than becoming a full-time parent. 

“We don't know that!” Hamilton said. His face was red and there were tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. “We might be France’s full-time parent depending on how much help they want…” 

Jefferson was pretty hot himself; someone must have turned off the air conditioning, thinking no one was left in the room. As he listened to Hamilton speel his bullshit, Jefferson peeled off his coat and threw it on a nearby chair. Hamilton stopped talking and gave him this squinty, uncomfortable look.

“What?” asked Jefferson, amused.

“You… Agh. Never mind, anyway, we can never truly guess the level of commitment France is asking for… We’re not able to provide infinite funds and assistance when we’re barely… We’re barely even anything ourselves… A country. We’re barely a country ourselves!” Hamilton was suddenly distracted in a way Jefferson had only ever witnessed once, when the president’s assistant Eliza Schuyler popped into a cabinet meeting in the middle of one of Hamilton’s diatribes. The entire cabinet had known that Schuyler and Hamilton had been a thing once, and very recently broke it off when this huge scandal broke out involving Hamilton and a certain certain poor, unhappily married Maria Reynolds. When Eliza walked in that day, Alexander had done just what he was doing now: fumbled red-faced through sentences, repeated words, and finally sat down in his chair, defeated.

Presently, Jefferson tried to look amused and superior as he stared at Hamilton, even though he was really just confused.

“What?” asked Jefferson. “Tired of arguing a selfish, ridiculous point?”

“No!” Hamilton snapped. “I'm right, and you probably know it, and Washington definitely agrees. So why even discuss it further. What are we doing here, Jefferson? Why do these little debates always happen when we know we’re never going to change each other’s minds?”

Jefferson shrugged. There was a sort of nervous tension hanging in the air, but he pretended not to notice. He sat in a chair across from Hamilton so he wasn't towering over him. 

“We just like debating. It's in our blood.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Hamilton, raking his fingers again through his greasy hair, dark eyes alight as always with a new idea. “We have that in common. Lots in common. Enemies have so much in common. The opposite of love's indifference, not hate, you know. Hate’s just its own kind of obsession.”

“What are you trying to say, exactly?”

Hamilton was silent for a long time. Staring at Jefferson with that squinty, uncomfortable look. Jefferson had never known him to be so quiet for so long, not shouting angry, idiotic opinions or cussing out fellow cabinet members. When Hamilton is quiet, there are a lot of other things -- good things -- that become apparent. Hamilton’s eyes, strong and intelligent. Hamilton's jawline and his pink lips. The way he looks so determined, so smart, like nothing could ever prevent him from getting what he wanted.

“I want to… not… talk politics.” It looked like it physically pained Hamilton to say those words in that order. “We should go out. For a drink, I mean. At a bar, right now.”

Now it was Jefferson’s turn to stare blankly. “Like a date?”

“No!” said Hamilton, a little too quickly. “No uh, just a beer. Two guys not talking politics, trying to be civil with each other.”

“Why?” 

At this, Hamilton's cheeks reddened. Again, he had the same look on his face as when Eliza walked into a meeting, and in retrospect that should have told Jefferson something.

“I know you'll never agree with me,” Hamilton said. “But I could really use a friend.”

“Fine,” Jefferson sighed. This was sure as hell going to be the biggest mistake of his life.

Hamilton beamed. “Really?” 

“Yes. Let's go before I come to my senses.”

So ten minutes later the two men were out of Washington’s empty office and in a crowded bar that smelled like meat, whiskey, and regret. There wasn't a single woman in sight, and the men there all looked like they had been sitting in a dark room watching sad documentaries for their entire lives.

“Why’d you pick this place?” Jefferson asked, pulling his beer closer to him as a nearby drunk man began to pat himself on the back while giggling maniacally. 

“No one talks politics here,” Hamilton said. “Or if they do, they don't mean it like we mean it.”

“Fair. So now that your idiotic foreign policy or lack thereof is off the table, what is there to talk about?” 

Hamilton shrugged. In the intimate light of the bar, he didn't resemble a naïve, babbling child like he did back in Washington’s office. He looked more like a man with secrets.

“Tell me something personal,” he said.

“How personal?”

“Deeply personal. I'm talking sex life, religious beliefs, regrets…” Hamilton paused for effect. One corner of his mouth turned up, and his eyes shone in the weird half light. “Even pet deaths.”

Witty banter it was, then. Another version of political argumentation, really, just with lower stakes. “Sex life, nonexistent,” Jefferson quipped. “Same goes for religious beliefs and regrets, as I believe nothing and do nothing wrong. Pet deaths, on the other hand…”

He proceeded to make up a long winded story about a dog named Spit that he’d found on the side of the road. Spit was near death after getting run over by a car, but an adolescent Thomas nursed him back to health in a years-long labor of love. As a result of his injury, Spit only had two legs, his front ones, and yanked himself forward so his butt was always dragging on the ground. Spit was so named because for some unexplainable reason, he always drooled. But one day, while little Thomas was taking Spit on his daily walk on the side of the exact same road where he was found, Spit got hit by another car. And this time, it hit his front half, including his brain and his tiny, frantically beating heart. 

Alexander ate that story up, smirking like a middle schooler watching porn for the first time.

“Why are you smiling?” Jefferson demanded, even though he was smiling too. “That was the defining moment of my life. That dog taught me how to love, and then my love was crushed.”

“Spit got hit, you said? Sounds like a terrible rap song.”

Thomas was having so much dumb fun that he just kept rolling with it. “Oh, I am a rapper, actually,” he said. “My rapper name is Daveed Diggs.” 

“You mean David Diggs?”

“Nah, man. Nobody respects a guy named David. It's Daveed.”

“Alright, alright,” Alexander laughed. “You’ve run your mouth enough. Now let me tell you about my beloved hamster…” 

They carried on like that for hours. Sips of beer. Wit, jokes, no politics. Though he wasn't about to admit it, in those moments laughing with his rival, Thomas felt more content than he had in a long time. 

By about midnight the pair wasn't quite drunk, but was extremely tipsy. The world was slower-paced, and simpler, and blurry around the edges. The conversation slowed down, got a little serious when Alexander said something about using writing to drown out the loneliness since Eliza left. Thomas admitted that he was lonely himself, and what he usually did was go to Monticello to clear his head.

“Does that work?” asked Hamilton.

“Sometimes.”

“What do you do when it doesn't?” 

“Suck it up until I can get my ass to France. Everything’s better in France, Alexander. You can forget America even exists.” 

At that, the younger man smiled down at his empty beer bottle.

“What?” 

“Nothing, it's just. Alexander. Are we on a first name basis now?”

“What? No!” 

Hamilton kept his eyes fixed on the bottle. 

Jefferson thought about it and softened. “Okay,” he said, “yeah, I guess.”

Jefferson put his head on Hamilton’s shoulder, and Hamilton didn't flinch. 

“Do you want me to make you some tea?” Alexander asked.

“Here?”

“No. I hate everything about this bar. At my apartment.”

Jefferson hesitated. It was after midnight, and they both had work in the morning. Work that practically required their yelling at each other. Maybe they shouldn’t let whatever was wrong with them tonight persist further. 

“Just tea, Thomas,” Hamilton muttered, his eyes now closed. “Won't hurt you. I think I even have this French kind…”


	2. Chapter 2

The taxi ride took five minutes. Alexander’s head was on Thomas’s shoulder the entire way, and Thomas didn't mind a bit. In fact, it was almost troubling how much he didn't mind. 

Hamilton's apartment was not what Jefferson expected. He expected the apartment to look like the man, dressed like the pits of fashion, basically a bunch of knock-off brand-name stuff. Possibly a few journals bound in fake leather, and plastic fountain pens. Definitely a big wood desk next to a big window. Instead the space reminded Jefferson of a blank sheet of paper. White walls, white tile floor in the kitchen, white outdated appliances. Tiny, tiny windows. No desk, no fountain pen, only a few simple, rundown pieces of furniture that were likely purchased from Ikea decades ago. 

“You live here?” asked Jefferson after he’d received a tour of the place, minus the bedroom. 

“Are you surprised?” 

Alexander started walking back to the kitchen, and Thomas trailed behind.

“I am. I expected grandeur.”

“Why? I have no one to impress.”

“I don't count?”

“You're just here for tea.”

Alexander plugged an electric kettle into the wall, and fumbled around in the cabinets until he found what he was looking for: a fat glass jar filled with what must have been thirty kinds of tea bags. He dumped them all unceremoniously onto the counter. 

“Take your pick.”

Thomas found his favorite brand almost immediately. They had it in Paris, at his favorite café. He didn't even think they sold it in the states. 

“You like that stuff?” asked Alexander as he filled a mug with tap water.

“I love it. Didn't think I would drink it again for another year or two.”

“Lafayette sent it.” Alex poured the water from the mug into the kettle, then began to fill the mug again. “From France. I tried one cup and hated it. You can take the rest when you go home, I'm never going to drink it myself.”

“Or I could just keep showing up at your place in the middle of the night to steal your tea.”

Alexander smiled as he poured the last of the water into the kettle, then turned it on. “I almost don't think I'd mind,” he practically whispered. 

They took their cups of tea to the couch, since the apartment didn't seem to have any kind of eating area. The couch smelled a little funny, but it was comfortable, and Jefferson sank into it.

The two men were quiet for a while as they drank their tea. It seemed like the moment where serious conversation would fit, but neither of them had enough energy, so they let the silence sit. The tea reminded Thomas of other late nights, ones in Paris that had started in fashionable cafés and progressed to bars and finally ended in some beautiful stranger’s apartment. Sometimes Thomas still wondered if everything that had happened in France was a dream, if anything like it could happen again. 

As soon as the tea was gone and the mugs were on the coffee table, Hamilton’s head was on Jefferson’s shoulder again. 

“I’m glad we don't hate each other,” Hamilton said. 

Jefferson’s heart was beating fast for some reason he was afraid to admit to himself. He was hyperaware of how close Hamilton was, how close the two of them were to each other. “Me, too.” 

“You can sleep here if you want. You don't have to but…”

“I want to.” Thomas didn't so much say the words as hear escape his mouth.

And then politics began to seep into the cracks of their conversation. "I'm not just a teacher's pet, you know," Hamilton said. “Washington agrees with me because I’m right about America's neutrality. We can't protect other nations when we're barely a nation ourselves...”

Jefferson let Hamilton go on for a while. Gradually, the part of Jefferson that wanted to take the skinny little man by his shoulders and shake some sense into him gave way to the languid, wandering part that just wanted to know what it meant that Hamilton was sitting barely an inch away, and that this "not a date" had become a goddamn sleepover. Gradually, Thomas stopped listening. By the time Alexander finished talking, Thomas was staring at his face like an idiot, letting himself admire the thin, striking features in a way he hadn't before. 

"What?" Alexander asked. The look on his face was of pure innocence, eyebrows raised, brown eyes shining. "You're not going to argue?"

"Maybe in the morning."

Kissing Alex was way too easy. All Thomas had to do was turn his head, and there were Alex’s lips, right against his own. And Alex must have been expecting it, because he leaned in instantly, hungry and wanting. 

What a great way to make him shut up, Thomas thought. 

They stayed like that for a while on the couch, just kissing. It became almost a competition; Thomas would have laughed at the situation if his mouth wasn't occupied. Alexander was on Team Rough Makeout Session, pushing into Thomas with all his weight, grabbing Thomas’s shoulders and his arms and his hair like he couldn't decide where the best place was to put his hands was but was determined to figure it out. Thomas was Team Gentle Kissing, doing his best to calm Alex down a little. He placed his hands on Alexander’s shoulders, and gradually slipped them down to his hips. No tearing at Hamilton’s hair or pressing their chests together. 

If Jefferson was going to be here all night, then he was going to do this right. He was going to stay in control. 

They progressed beyond kissing, slowly. Jefferson brushed off Hamilton’s attempts to take off both of their clothes in a way that would have involved ruining them. Instead, he unbuttoned Hamilton’s shirt carefully, and slipped it off the younger man’s shoulders. 

“Slow down,” Jefferson whispered, planting a few kisses on Hamilton’s bare neck and shoulders. “It's better this way.”

The whole night remained a contest. Hamilton wanted fast, Jefferson wanted slow. Most everything ended up at a happy medium, but there were times when Hamilton wanted more and Jefferson had to hiss, “Be patient!” 

At the end, now, drifting asleep and cuddling under the covers, they’ve both won. It’s been so long since Jefferson was this close to anyone. With the political climate being what it is, sex and cuddling are not at the top of his agenda. 

He strokes Hamilton’s hair and tries to process what just happened. 

 

Zoom out. This means many things. One, that Thomas is at least not totally one hundred percent straight. Which he’d always kind of known, but it was weird after so many years of crushes and porn consumption to actually be with a man. Thomas Jefferson is also risking serious heartache with this one. There is a chance that tomorrow that beautiful dumb fuck Alexander Hamilton will pull on his shirt and leave before breakfast, like this was just a one-night stand. That the Secretary of Treasury will continue to argue effortlessly and write like he’s running out of time, without ever giving the likes of Jefferson more than a pitying glance. And if that happens… Well. Who knows if Thomas is in love, or if this is just some weird reaction to sex that he just doesn't get because he never read Having an Affair With Your Political Rival, A Complete Guide. He just knows that after tonight, if Hamilton freezes him out, it would at the very least put his career and his sanity on the line.

 

Zoom in. None of that matters now, in the present moment. Now it’s evening, now the firelight plays across the back wall and the rain taps out a rhythm on the roof of Alex’s apartment. And Alex… Thomas wishes he could see his face in the dark, but he can't, and anyway it's enough to feel Alexander’s head against his chest, to feel the lift as Alexander breathes in and the slight pressure as he exhales, to know he’s falling asleep right where he is and until morning at least he isn't going anywhere.


End file.
